By all measures, the FTSE 100 index had a terrible year in 2020.
While Wall Street s Nasdaq and S&P 500 flourished as America s economy ailed, climbing 42 per cent and 15 per cent respectively, the value of Britain s blue-chip index fell 14 per cent - its worst annual performance since 2008.
Hope is on the horizon though. Vaccines have been developed and stock markets have boomed as investors grow more confident the global economy will open up again and return to some form of sanity.
Since its March low-point, the FTSE 100 has now risen by over a third, with tech-focused companies such as Ocado and Tesla backer Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust doing strongly.
10 Wednesday AM Reads
My mid-week morning
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Millions of Christmas presents may arrive late because of Postal Service delays Unprecedented package volume has paralyzed the agency, leading managers to divert vast shipments of mail across the country. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy tried to screw up the election, he managed to screw up Christmas instead. (Washington Post)
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What If You Only Invested at Market Peaks? There were some lean times in there, especially in the aftermath of the Great Depression. But by and large, the long-term returns even from the height of market peaks look pretty decent. If you have a long enough time horizon and are willing to be patient, the long-run remains a good place to be when investing in the stock market. (A Wealth of Common Sense)
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This is Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg Radio.
BARRY RITHOLTZ, HOST, MASTERS IN BUSINESS: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest. His name is Tom Slater, he’s the head of the U.S. equities team at U.K. firm Baillie Gifford headquartered in Edinburgh. The firm’s been around since 1908. They manage, pick a number, almost $300 billion in assets.
They’ve had explosive growth and they are not your typical growth manager. They run concentrated portfolios. He referred to one of the funds they run as growth at an unreasonable price. But it’s worked out really well, that fund is up 112 percent, almost 100 percent more than the S&P 500.
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Private Investor is a recipient of the information who meets all of the conditions set out below, the recipient: 1. Obtains access to the information in a personal capacity; 2. Is not required to be regulated or supervised by a body concerned with the regulation or supervision of investment or financial services; 3. Is not currently registered or qualified as a professional securities trader or investment adviser with any national or state exchange, regulatory authority, professional association or recognised professional body; 4. Does not currently act in any capacity as an investment adviser, whether or not they have at some time been qualified to do so;
US$12.3 TRILLION out of thin air…
And if you click here we’ll show you something that could be key to unlocking 5G’s full potential.
However, at the other end of the spectrum, shares in some of the index’s most prominent constituents, such as
BP,
IAG, have crumbled by more than 40%.
As the world starts to get to grips with the coronavirus pandemic, I think buying a selection of these stocks could be a good idea.
FTSE 100 stocks to buy
The five worst-performing stocks in the FTSE 100 this year are IAG,
Rolls-Royce, BP, Lloyds Bank and
Royal Dutch Shell. At the time of writing, shares in these businesses have fallen between 40% and 61% year-to-date.